Illinois woman who found dead husband in closet describes 'total shock'

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An Illinois woman whose husband went missing for more than seven months described her "total shock" at finding his corpse in her home. 

Jennifer Maedge, whose husband Richard disappeared in April last year, made the grisly discovery on Dec. 11, as she was searching for Christmas decorations. In an interview with People Magazine, she recounted how she found Richard's mummified remains inside a closet-within-a-closet in their two-story home in Troy, Illinois.

"It was pretty shocking," Maedge told the magazine. She said that Richard, a 53-year-old grandfather of three with three adult children from a previous marriage, had died by suicide. 

The Madison County coroner said there were no signs of foul play. 

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Jennifer Maedge reported Richard missing on April 27 after she didn't hear from him. (FOX 2 St. Louis)

Maedge explained that Richard, her husband of 20 years, had suffered from mental health issues and received treatment before. 

"He told me that he knew the breaking point, and he would get help. So, this would be the most farfetched of anything, that he would actually go through with this," Maedge said.

"He never verbalized anything [like] he would take his life to me," she added.

According to Madison County Coroner Steve Nonn's autopsy report, Richard committed suicide in April. Before he died, he called Jennifer and told her he was coming home early from work.

Jennifer found that Richard's car was parked outside their house but could not find him. She reported him missing a day later on April 27.

Police conducted several searches of the Maedge's home but were unable to locate Richard.

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Troy resident Richard Maedge told his wife he was coming home early from work before he died. (FOX 2 St. Louis)

Local news station FOX 2 St. Louis reported that chief deputy coroner Kelly Rogers described the house as a "hoarder home" and said it smelled sewer-like. 

"'Hoarder' is a strong word," Jennifer told People, "but he was more — I would consider, more of a pack rat."

She admitted that her husband, a maintenance worker for an agency that operates homes for people with disabilities, "didn't want to get rid of anything." 

As Jennifer and her family members waited for any sign of Richard, the foul odor in her home persisted. A plumber called to investigate detected an "ammonia" smell, but was unable to identify its source, she said. 

"The smell did not take up the whole entire house, it was very, very confusing and everything, because there's not a basement or anything, it's more of a crawl space and a cellar," Jennifer said. "Plus, I have four dogs and a cat roaming around, so you get many different smells. And then also, my sinuses were bothering me at the time, too. So, you're trying to figure things out and you're getting confused at where it's [coming from]."

According to the coroner, mummified bodies don't always have a strong odor, so once Richard's corpse had stopped decomposing it would've been more difficult to find. 

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Troy, Illinois authorities searched the house multiple times but could not find a trace of Richard. (FOX 2 St. Louis)

It wasn't until Jennifer went looking for Christmas decorations that she found Richard's body in a storage area that originally been accessible by hallway door. She told People that the space was sealed off after the couple remodeled their home and could only be accessed through a hidden door in a larger outer closet.

"Just to go in there, I had to remove a portion of my clothes out of the closet without climbing around all the stuff that was in there," she said. "And then, I had a flashlight, so basically opening the door and seeing him there was just total shock."

Though police conducted at least three searches of the home, Jennifer never thought to tell them about the interior closet.

"I didn't ever really think of it, because I never thought that he was there," she said. 

"It never occurred to me that he would've taken his own life," she added.

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Jennifer said that Richard had been diagnosed for depression before and had been prescribed medication, but he was not taking any at the time of his death.

"I was trying to keep an optimistic kind of outlook just in case he happened to be alive," she said. "I mean, I always knew that there was a positive and a negative of being alive and being dead throughout the whole entire thing. But if he happened to be alive and I thought he was dead, I would've felt really guilty."

She remembers her husband as a quirky but compassionate man, "a very caring person, very thoughtful." 

"I know he wouldn't want me to dwell in his loss or his passing or anything," she said, "so I just have to try to figure out how to move on."

Fox News' Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report.